Sunday, December 1, 2013

Our First Four Cities

From Wilmington, NC to Salisbury, NC

2 bikes, 2 guitars, 2 skateboards, 2 trash cans, 2 bags of dog food

We left our one bedroom apartment in Wilmington and hit the road on 11/25 around 10 PM. Exhausted from the move and leaving so late, we spent the night at a Walmart in Mebane, NC. Then we got a fresh start the next morning and drove the rest of the way to Salisbury. We spent Thanksgiving with our families. 5 out of 6 of Josh's siblings and their families came to town to celebrate. I got to visit with my family in Charlotte as well. We didn't have enough time to see all the friends we wanted and time was tight to even hang out with our families, but we still cherished the time we had. While we were in Salisbury, we stayed in Josh's parent's driveway in Granite Quarry, and tested all of our systems, and our motorcycle Virginia repaired (named after Josh's mother's mom).

It was a lot colder than we expected in NC and our heat runs on propane. We found a campsite a couple of miles away in Lexington, NC that did LP fills. We thought we had everything put away properly before we left Josh's parent's house, but that was not the case. We forgot to lower our TV antenna! As we were pulling out of the driveway, we took out the neighbors telephone wire (gratefully it was out of use!). It tore our whole antenna off of our RV. After Josh tried to repair the mangled piece of metal, he went out and bought a new outdoor antenna, spliced the coax cable, bolted it down, and we were watching 36 channels of free TV.

From Salisbury, NC to Statesville, NC

Honey enjoying a fuzzy pine cone!

This was an important trip for me to make. Even though I was born in Salisbury, I have lived the most consecutive years of my life in Statesville. I was able to meet up with my best friend and see my godchild. From Statesville, we began our journey!

From Statesville, NC to Blacksburg, SC

At IKEA in Charlotte, NC

We left Statesville around 6:00 PM and arrived at our first campsite around 7:45 PM. Driving there at night was not so fun! As we were merging onto I-85 South, a truck driver would not let us get over! Thankfully Josh was driving and he eased the RV halfway into the shoulder and waited for the truck to get over. We were going as fast as we could, but the trucker just didn't want to slow down and get over for us as he was in a convoy. We had to be an inch away from the truck! Needless to say we were relieved to arrive at Cherokee RV Campgroud in Blacksburg, SC. It's a very quiet campground off of I-85 South exit 102. Because we left NC so late, we wanted to feel accomplished by driving out of state, even if it was only a couple of miles beyond the border. My phone had stopped allowing me to hear people I was calling and they couldn't hear me, but the owner of the campground texted me when our several phone conversations had failed. He was very polite and helped us make our reservation and gave us directions and even welcomed us into the campground even though we arrived so late.

We've been so busy getting ready for our new RV life that we have forgotten how close Christmas is! Cherokee RV Campground absolutely made it clear what time of year it was. They decorated the trees in the campground and had light up candy canes throughout the park. I was amazed at how peaceful the place was too. We even heard an owl whoo-hoo-ing right before we went to bed. When we got there it was dark, but when we woke up in the morning we finally got a good look at the place. The grass was so green and there was a horse pasture next to the park. The dogs are still adjusting to going to new places. Suede and Honey still go every which way when we first take them out. They're so cute! After a good night's sleep, we woke up, dumped our tanks, filled our fresh water, and went to the Flying J to get our propane filled. Then it was time to hit the road again!

From Blacksburg, SC to Aiken, SC

Blacksboro, SC

My grandparents used to live in Newberry :)

This was the horse pasture was next to the park in Blacksboro,SC

Passing through GA

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Originally we were planning on driving to Betty's RV Park in Beech Island, SC, but they were completely booked. So we went to Passport America's website and found another park in Aiken. Sure enough they had an opening and for $15 a night we took it! So we entered the address into our GPS and headed that way. Our RV has two gas tanks; one in the front and one in the rear. While Josh was driving up a hill on the interstate, he mentioned that he had the "pedal to the metal" and we were barely hitting 40 MPH. This is NOT OK! I looked over at the gas indicator and told him to switch the gas tank because it looked like it was almost empty. Too late... The RV stopped running and Josh had to pull over to the shoulder and in between the guard rail. As the traffic whizzed by, blowing our RV left and right, we attempted to start the RV back up. After switching the gas tank to the full one and trying to start it about 4 times, good ol' Alma (our name for the RV after Josh's grandmother) finally started! We very safely got back on the interstate and started back on our way. Luckily we didn't come across any more problems the whole way to Aiken. It really surprised me that even though we were pulled over into the shoulder with our hazards on, no one got into the left lane like you're supposed to. Everyone just kept driving like normal. I really started to get nervous, sitting on the shoulder, feeling the RV being blown every time a vehicle drove by... I thought we were going to be blown over! (Josh said that wouldn't have happened but it FELT like it could have to me.) Tonight we are staying in Aiken, SC and our campsite is on concrete! We are level and lovin' it! It's going to rain all day tomorrow so we are going to stay here and relax and plan our next four campsites. We are trying not to drive more than 4 hours at a time and take it easy. We ARE RVer's now for peep's sake! The dogs are finally getting used to going to their kennels to relax even though they know they can easily sleep on the couch.